PROJECT: Zaku II (costume)

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thanks guys,

Well, I do want to finish off the Zaku costume for my daughter. But, the anime convention is this weekend. I won't have time to do it. I still have some finishing touches to do both on hers and mine.

BUT, we'll see how much energy I have left after this weekend. I might continue! At least do the chest and shoudlers! hehe
 
This is sooo awesome. I really truely can't wait to see how this turns out. Your daughter is one lucky girl!
 
where has this build been. and you so need to release your patterns for this i want to build a Zaku II so bad lol........... i am watching this build and bookmarking it like now.
 
drack: Thanks! Too bad she doesn't know it. Still not daddy's girl. [BIG SIGH]

spartan-005: Thanks! I actually started this thread just today! haha.. I hadn't posted my progress. As I was just too busy building it! This and of course, my Gundam build. That one has a ways to update too. But should be finished by tonight or tomorrow. Deadline's a bitch. Patterns?!? Hmm.. I have them cutout already, I guess I can just scan them and post them as PDFs?!? I don't know. They were custom made each time.

Oh.. btw.. I was in the progess of making an army of the Zakus! I'm selling them! It's for a fundraiser for my daughter's school. I can't bake or make scarves... sooooo, I'm selling my Zaku helmets!! (heads up... they will be $100 each) I'll post about it when I'm ready to sell
 
Covering up the Ear holes:
Using a mesh fabric. This would hide the wearer and allow ventilation and sound to enter. Triple goodness.
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nice nice and i may be intrested in one down the road when they are ready. but also if you could scan and upload that would be kool as hell to. and keep up the great work and i have seen ur freedom build which is pretty also. i want to build a foam rx-79G out of foam/pep myself
 
nice nice and i may be intrested in one down the road when they are ready. but also if you could scan and upload that would be kool as hell to. and keep up the great work and i have seen ur freedom build which is pretty also. i want to build a foam rx-79G out of foam/pep myself

Thanks! Not really sure if templates on a foam build is a good idea. Because the foam itself has a thickness. (And there are many different thicknesses available) When I cut the foam to match up to another piece, I almost all the time custom cut them at specific angles to have a better edge and/or gluing surface.

So, giving you a template could give you a lot of problems. Unless you use my templates as a starting point. To know how big a piece to cut off. But, it'll be custom each time.

I made 5 more Zaku helmets last weekend. (All are around 80% done now) And they all had minor/subtle differences that my paper template didn't work everytime. Sometimes, I even had to start a new cut on a fresh piece because I ruined it by following the template. So, unless you're accepting that.. I can give them to you!! hehe
 
I second that as a fellow foam builder pretty much 70% of my templates have been more of a guide than anything else. Most foam work is done by intuition.
 
Most foam work is done by intuition.

That sounds pretty interesting. Being a 3D modeler I'm trying to create my own templates, then unfold them in Pepakura Designer, and I was thinking that this should work... I do try to factor in the 10mm thickness of the foam in my modeling, simplify stuff when necessary, watch for angled cuts and so on. I'm also fitting all the parts to a sort of a 3D scan of myself, hoping to avoid any scaling problems.

But I have only started about 2 weeks ago and haven't finished anything yet, so now I'm kinda worried if it's going to work in practice ;)
 
That sounds pretty interesting. Being a 3D modeler I'm trying to create my own templates, then unfold them in Pepakura Designer, and I was thinking that this should work... I do try to factor in the 10mm thickness of the foam in my modeling, simplify stuff when necessary, watch for angled cuts and so on. I'm also fitting all the parts to a sort of a 3D scan of myself, hoping to avoid any scaling problems.

But I have only started about 2 weeks ago and haven't finished anything yet, so now I'm kinda worried if it's going to work in practice ;)


3D? you in the industry? I've been in it for 17 years now. I am no good at modelling. Took me forever just to make my Gundam head! It's embarrassing how long it took. I know my friends could do it in like a day or two.

Yea. There would be LOTS of alterations from your CG model if you're going with foam. Some people here just print out all the shapes in Pepakura (without the tabs) then use those as your base shapes to cut. Never used this technique. IMO, seems like a lot of work to me.
 
Yeah, I've been at it since 2000 and I'm the lead character modeler at our studio now. If you watch video game CG trailers, there's a chance you've seen some of our stuff...

I do plan for the foam, I've tried to build a Noble 6 helmet as a test project for my tools and other things using the cardboard pep templates but it didn't really work out as I've imagined. I hope to do better with my own models, and will let you know how it turns out in practice.

Getting a bit technical, I use 3ds max as a modeling tool and there's a modifier called Shell which extrudes the mesh with a depth that I set to 1cm. So it shows how the foam build would look like and I can see the angles I need to cut at the various edges and where I need to modifiy the model to work better. Then I'll only export the geometry I need to use for the templates themselves, I did a quick unfolding test with a model I had to scrap and it seemed to work well. I also got some 2mm foam sheets for the small detail parts but I'm a bit worried that they're far too soft...
 
USG51: Go for it! Love to see you try it. It'll make you THE BEST brother in the whole universe for sure!!

vargatom: Awesome. I've done game trailers too! Prototype and Deus Ex being the most recent ones. Ok.. I think I know what you're talking about re: Shell. That might work. I'll follow your progress when you do it! I'm super curious.
 
Hehh, nice to see a fellow 3D guy getting into the practical side :)
We did the Assassin's Creed stuff since part 2 and Mass Effect 3 recently, among other things.

Unfortunately I don't think I can post a work in progress thread, for various reasons... but I'll make sure to post somewhere about my experiences when I can.
 
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